In a campaign event today, President Obama used the rising price of gasoline to stress the importance for the extension of the temporary 2% Social Security Payroll Tax reduction - providing an example of one person who needed the roughly $40 per month extra to help cover his gas costs.

'Fundamental change' from President Obama is nothing more than the deliberate effort to create conditions to 'justify' the progressive policies of the Administration. Spike gasoline prices to force Americans to embrace hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles - even though they are excessively expensive and in the case of electric vehicles, lacking in range and utility. Spike electricity prices to make green energy solutions more viable. Spike the national debt and annual budget deficits to 'justify' the demands for additional taxes - which will be used to fund more government expansion and not reduce the deficit.

The Chicago Tribune, in their editorial titled 'Athens on the Potomac', starts down the objective and responsible path by noting the challenges with the President's FY2013 budget proposal...but then go off the rails...

President Barack Obama's budget proposal Monday all but seals the deal: Together, Washington Democrats and Republicans have stopped governing. Both parties now are on automatic pilot. They'll do as little as possible to solve this nation's debt crisis before Nov. 6. Instead they'll wait to see whether American voters firmly choose a direction for the United States and its destructive indebtedness.

It's convenient, one can suppose, to ignore where the do-nothings in Congress reside. It's in the Senate Democrat majority - not in the GOP majority House. Which body has not passed a budget in 1,110 days? Over 30 bills passed in the House sit stalled by Harry Reid in the Senate - bills that include deficit reduction plans, job growth plans, budget bills. The feckless mainstream media encourages this action because they are unwilling to call out the Senate Democrats - or the Administration for their role in 'ginning' up yet another campaign line...the problems are the result of the 'do-nothing Republican Congress' not the President or his agenda.

Let the American voter see the effects of Obama's policies and direction so these can all be a factor in November's election.

Speaking of elections and voters, the Administration continues to strongly oppose any state taking steps to require Voter ID's to be required when casting a ballot. They are opposing these initiatives on two grounds. First is the claim that requiring a voter to produce proof of their identity when they cast a ballot is racially discriminatory. The second and equally vapid argument is that these steps are unnecessary because there is not a voter fraud problem in the US electoral processes.

A study just released goes far to demolishing the second argument. This study found that 1 in 8 US voter registrations, totalling about 24 million, have significant errors. 1.8 million dead people remain on voter rolls - and casting ballots. Many more are registered in 2 or more states, while 12 million have address inaccuracies which include non-existent residence addresses.

As tensions increase with Iran, we need to remind the American voter that the Mad Mullah's of Iran could have been toppled in the summer of 2009 during the massive civilian uprisings there if the Obama Administration decided to offer them support. However, in that case, like in Syria now, the Obama Administration decided to do nothing.

The Greek economic tragedy continues in Europe - with the focus on the next meetings between EU Finance Ministers which will determine if the steps that Greece has taken warrants the second bailout of the country in 21 months. The circumstances have come down to a choice of actions - worse and 'worser'. 21 months ago, Greece received over 110 billion Euros in a bailout. Now Greece needs another 145 billion Euros for a bailout - and with the grim economic numbers Greece has, everyone knows that a third bailout will also be needed.

Consider now what this grim choice of death by a thousand cuts involves. What Greece has in essence committed itself to is an internal devaluation lasting years, if not decades into the future. There is no discernible end to the austerity; year after year, it grinds remorselessly on. Even if everything goes according to plan, which seems deeply unlikely on the record so far, it takes until 2020 to reduce the national debt to 120pc of GDP, a level still far too high to be remotely sustainable.

In addition to having to run big primary surpluses into the indefinite future, Greece also faces a massive hit to nominal wages and living standards as it seeks to impose competitiveness on an economy which in truth has about as much in common with the colder, northern climes to which it has joined itself at the hip as the Mediterranean does with the Baltic. To think that the two can ever be moulded into a unified whole is fantasy of the cruellest kind.

There is not a hope of Greece growing its way back to debt sustainability while still in the euro. As things stand, capital is leaving the country by whatever means available, sometimes stuffed into suitcases and spirited across the border.

It may be deplorable for the country's rich to be running scared in such numbers, but it is also an entirely rational response to a crisis which might at any moment destroy what little capital that remains.

No business can survive in such an environment. Not until Greece devalues, and Greek assets start to look reasonable value once more, will the money return.

To top it off, the technocrats in Brussels and at the IMF have misdiagnosed the crisis from the beginning. First, they thought Athens had a liquidity problem that could be eased by large infusions of loans, rather than a fundamental solvency problem. Second, they believed that what Athens needed most was a balanced budget and a smaller debt load, to be solved arithmetically with less spending and higher taxes. But Greece's real problem is the lack of economic growth, itself a product of policies that discourage private enterprise. That's why Greece ranks 100th on the World Bank's most recent rankings of "ease of doing business"—right behind Yemen.

In other words, the fires in Athens are the result of the combustible mix of a desiccated welfare state and the burning embers of Keynes's cigarette. Don't expect those fires to be put out by this latest round of austerity. In theory, Athens has agreed to carve €3.3 billion out of this year's budget (including €300 million out of pensions), slash the minimum wage by 22%, and eliminate 150,000 government jobs by 2015.

These are necessary measures for a government sliding toward a debt-to-GDP ratio of 160%. But they do nothing to address the growth side of Greece's problem. They will also create an intolerable political problem for Greece's government as state workers are laid off into a shrinking economy. Expect a fresh exodus of Greek labor, along with increasingly powerless (and short-lived) Greek governments.

This is the face of what will happen not only in Greece, but much of the rest of the Eurozone as long as they embrace a failed architecture built on the welfare state and Keynesian economics. It is also what is going to happen to the US within the next couple of decades, max, if we do not undertake a massive (and unfortunately painful) course correction now.

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It's time to short Amazon's stock...

The Mistress of Disaster, Jamie Gorelick, has been added to the Amazon Board of Directors. She brings an 'impressive' resume... her work as a senior member of the Clinton Department of Justice 'built' the firewall that prevented the sharing of intelligence information between government agencies which facilitated the 9/11 terror attack; as a senior executive of Fannie Mae, she made millions while setting the framework in place for the 2008 housing industry collapse - and the need for taxpayers to bail out Fannie to the tune of over $150 billion; her role as a member of the 9/11 Commission which was not only a conflict of interest, but provided her with the ability to whitewash both her culpability and that of the Clinton Administration; her legal work to protect BP in the wake of the Gulf spill; and defending Duke University after it tried to railroad several of the school's lacrosse team in faked sex assault charges.

Her appointment is not only proof of the 'Peter Principle', but proof that Amazon is doomed.

On This Day in History

278 - St. Valentine beheaded in Rome

1779 - Captain James Cook is killed by natives of Hawaii during his 3rd visit to the Pacific island group

About Me

I've been commenting on various blogs and subscription sites since early 2002 - adding my observations, thoughts, and musings on local, state, and national politics, national security, international relations, the economy, and other topics interest me. Until 2009, I was most active on LittleGreenFootballs before being driven off. Since then, I've been fighting idiotarians on BillOReilly.com and other sites...